Susie & Peter / Podcast Episodes  / Season Six / Hunter Valley: History to High Jinks

Summary

A hop, skip and jump away from Sydney, the Hunter Valley is renowned as the birthplace of Australian wine. And yet this is far from ideal wine territory: hot, sticky, often stormy.

So how did this tiny wine region come to play such an outsize role in Ozzie wine’s history and evolution?

Join us to find out why as we chew the cud with Hunter legend Bruce Tyrrell (sample quote: ‘I’m the luckiest man in the wine industry’) and winemaker Xanthe Hatcher (‘The Hunter’s a region of extremes…’)

We touch on everything from French pick-pockets to oysters and, ‘oblivion for a dollar fifty’.

We explore how Hunter Semillon became an idiosyncratic global classic whose naturally low alcohol, refreshing, distinctive and food-friendly style paradoxically mean it’s well suited to the wine drinkers of today.

(But it wasn’t always going to be this way – at one stage the wines had enough acidity, ‘to take the enamel off your teeth!’)

And we also look beyond Semillon to other Hunter staples like Chardonnay and Shiraz as well as future bets like Fiano.

Thanks to the Hunter Valley Wine and Tourism Association and Wine Australia for sponsoring this episode. As ever, all opinions and recommendations are entirely our own. And thanks to you for tuning in!

Starring

Bruce Tyrrell
Xanthe Hatcher

Map

Links

  • If you want to geek out with facts, figures and general knowledge about the Hunter, check out Wine Australia’s ‘Ultimate Guide to Hunter Valley wine’
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Wines

Here are the wines we taste and recommend in this episode.

Click on the wine name for the Wine Searcher link to find where you can buy this wine around the world:

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Transcript

This transcript is AI generated. It’s not perfect.

Susie: Hello, you’re listening to Wine Blast. It’s the usual drill: him, me and a whole load of delicious wine That and lots of chat, which in this episode is all about Australia’s famous Hunter Valley.

Peter: Yes, hello. I’m quite surprised and chuffed that I actually warranted, a mention in the mix there, when there were clearly far more important priorities for you, like the chat. And the wines.

Susie: And the wines!

Peter: So thanks for not forgetting me in the mix. You know, I’m glad I’m still just about justifying my place here. So, yes, the Hunter, you know, the historic heart of Australian wine: small but mighty, and producer of unique wines, including the iconic Hunter Semillon. Here’s a taster of what’s coming up:

Bruce Tyrrell: The penny dropped that in Semillon we had something that, in the world of wine, was truly unique. That wine really isn’t made anywhere else in the world. I always say that about 60% of my bloodstream’s Semillon.

Xanthe Hatcher: We’re also very conscious that we need to kind of continually evolve and continually adapt. We’re experimenting where we’re playing around with not just different varieties, but different winemaking techniques.

Susie: The legend who is Bruce Tyrrell from Tyrrells, and Xanthe Hatcher from Audrey Wilkinson there, both of whom we’ll be chatting to during the programme. We’ll also be recommending some very special wines from the Hunter Valley, white and red, some more traditional, some less. In short, we have a tasty and intriguing show coming up, so do not go anywhere.

Peter: Yeah, and we should say thank you to the Hunter Valley Wine and Tourism Association and Wine Australia for sponsoring this episode and, you know, giving us the chance to explore this fascinating region. As ever, all opinions and recommendations are entirely our own. And there is always a place for critical engagement. So with that in mind, should we set the scene a bit?

Susie: Let’s do it. So, Hunter Valley, or the Hunter as the Aussies know it, given their penchant for nicknames, is renowned as the birthplace of Australian wine. It’s pretty close to Sydney on Australia’s east coast, about 160 kilometres north of the city. The first British settlements were on the east coast and they planted vines around Sydney, but the soils and climate just weren’t right. As they moved inland, they discovered the Hunter. According to legend, it was first sighted by a British army officer during a search for escaped convicts. Though, before then, it had long been home to the Wonnarua people.

Peter: Yeah. Now, vines and other crops thrived in the Hunter. it’s thought the first vines were planted in the 1820s and over the years, some key names in australian wine history played a part in the region’s development, from James Busby to Henry Lindemann, George Wyndham, Maurice O’Shea and Murray Tyrrell. Hunter’s convenient location near Sydney, hence a lot of the action probably helped both early on and subsequently.

Susie: What didn’t necessarily help was the climate. You know, the Hunter is often hot, sticky and rainy in the key summer and autumn months when grapes are ripening and being harvested, its climate is defined as subtropical. Ask any winemaker and they’ll tell you these are not the ideal conditions for crafting fine wine The world Atlas of wine describes the Hunter as triumph of proximity over suitability. So in short, being close to Sydney helped a lot.

Peter: Yeah. And yeah, if history teaches us anything, it’s that fine, unique wine can emerge from the most unexpected of places. You know, the kind of places that might not get planted now, but which the wine world would be significantly poorer without. And Hunter is just such a glorious exception to the rule.

Susie: I mean, that said, the wine tourism probably helps a lot in terms of income and longer term, financial sustainability. that and wealthy potential investors living nearby. M I mean, maybe a bit like in Napa with St Francisco or Stellenbosch with Cape Town. You know, this is pretty scenic wine tourist country with lots of smart seller door operations and golf courses, restaurants, you know, that sort of thing.

Peter: Yeah, yeah. But you know, I guess equally the Hunter would never have stuck around if it didn’t make decent wine you know. True, true. Not just that, but highly distinctive wine Yeah, that’s the key. You know, this is where we come on to hunt a Semion, you know, a world famous wine style. It’s been called many things, but idiosyncratic is one, unique is another. You could add sort of things like charismatic, quirky, attention grabbing, invigorating, you know. Or you could say, sum it up by saying it’s a sort of a quirk of history that’s paradoxically ideal for the wine drinkers of today. M sort of back to the future wine

Susie: Oh, we will come on to that, won’t we? Yeah, yeah, but yeah, Hunter, Semillon it is, it’s compelling stuff. You know, the classic style is very dry, unoaked with spine tingling

00:05:00

Susie: acidity and flavours of lime, herbs, grass, green, apples. Crucially, it tends to have pretty low alcohol. Around 11% is quite common when it’s young. Classic Hunter Semillon is all about freshness but it’s when it ages in bottle that it really starts to sing. It develops toasty, nutty, smoky, flinty, honeyed, almost buttery complexity that just oozes out of the glass and bowls you over. Yeah.

Peter: and always with that refreshing, steely acidity and low alcohol, as you say, you know, which not only makes it great for modern wine drinkers for whom, you know, lower alcohol is often important, but it also works well as a great accompaniment for food, doesn’t it? You know, so, you know, we’re going to come on to all of that.

Susie: Indeed we will. Indeed we will. Now, it is worth noting that Hunter Semillon was sometimes sold in the past as Hunter Valley Riesling or even Hunter Valley Burgundy or Chablis. You know, in the days before trademark infringement lawyers or whatever got involved, they just went for it, didn’t they? Anyway, after a while, the producers, they realised that they needed to sell it for what it actually was. But either way, I think that frame of reference is interesting because it speaks of elegant, fresh, cultured white wine in a vaguely old world mould.

Peter: Yeah, yeah, it’s intriguing, isn’t it? But the Hunter, of course, is more than just Semillon. You know, however much of a flagship style it might be these days, there’s actually more Chardonnay produced than semillon in Hunter. And Shiraz is also kind of around the same production level. I think together, the three of them make up about three quarters of total Hunter wine production. So Hunter Chardonnay spawned a generation of flamboyantly rich australian Chardonnay. But, you know, but these days, the best wines in the region are more balanced and refreshing, albeit with a. Still with a distinctive character. and then the Shiraz tends to be midweight with a kind of peppery, savoury appeal that, again, is pretty well suited to modern taste.

Susie: What people are drinking now and then. There are, of course, interesting new things in the Hunter as well, you know, from Tempranillo to fiano Vermentino, Sangiovese, Barbera, Albariño, Gruno, Feltlina, Montepulciano, Graciano and Nero Davila. You know, albeit all still relatively small, but they’re all there. In fact, the Hunter itself is pretty small. You know, it represents less than 1% of the national australian crush, actually about 0.3% by volume. And its production has generally contracted over time. So by way of general context, we are talking a small but highly visible niche within australian wine with tonnes of history and very, as you say, distinctive wines.

Peter: Okay, so I think on that note, we should bring in our first interviewee. Bruce Tyrrell needs little introduction. Tyrrell’s is one of the most famous names out of the Hunter, first established in 1858 and whose vat won. Semillon is the stuff of legend. I can’t believe we’ve got it sitting on the table here right in front of us. But it is now. Bruce’s dad, Murray, was instrumental in creating unique, characterful wines, vat 47, Chardonnay being just one case in point. And Bruce has carried on this legacy as the fourth generation.

Susie: Now, these days, Bruce is chairman while his son Chris has taken over the reins as day to day CEO. He says it means he gets to spend more time in the vineyard and ensuring the 6th generation his grandsons want to stay in the family business. he also says he enjoys not having to get out of bed so early too. But given how much he still does, I’m not sure he’s telling the whole truth on that.

Peter: I quite agree.

Peter: I quite agree there.

Peter: Now I got to have a long chat with Bruce about many things, including, of course, the Hunter, what it means to him, his semion and shiraz, which incidentally, he pronounces Semalon and Shirra. but I started by asking him to tell us about the history of the place.

Bruce Tyrrell: wine in Australia started with the first fleet. When it arrived, there were grapevines there. They planted, them in the botanic gardens in Sydney. One of the legends is there were two french convicts and they thought, well, they’re french, they’ll know about wine And there were pickpockets out of Paris probably. And so the vines died pretty quickly. but they kept coming. They tried to plant them around Sydney and wasn’t terribly successful. The soil around Sydney itself, pretty awful. and the wet got the better of them in western Sydney. But then they came up here to the Hunter. In, 1820, 1st settlers came to the Hunter and again, it gave the colony a really good food supply. Stick it, feather in the ground, grow a chicken up here. It’s wonderful country, most of it on the river. and so the grapes followed that and it grew steadily into, into a big industry coming into the first world war, of course, then that was knocked about. My great grandfather was part of that, I suppose, rush to the Hunter.

00:10:00

Bruce Tyrrell: he came here because with his elder brother, because their uncle was the first anglican bishop of Newcastle and he supposedly got the local butcher’s daughter pregnant out of wedlock. The bishop disowned him. So that’s how they got started and so it grew between the wars with tough time. Wasn’t all that flash really table wine wise until the seventies and into the eighties. In 1980, I think our biggest selling product was still BlackBerry nip which was port with BlackBerry essence in it. it was oblivion for $1.50. wasn’t a lot of table one in those days. Brian McGuigan M and I talking some years ago about doing tastings in the seventies and eighties and nineties. And we weren’t trying to sell Tyrrells or Windham estate or whatever. We were just trying to get people to drink wine And then it all changed and you know wow, now we’re in the industry we’re in today. I think my my generation have seen the big changes. I’ve gone from no electricity on gravel roads. I remember when we got electricity in 1958 and trying to run the winery on one old donkey engine and a lot of, a lot of sweat and muscle.

Peter: So how did that work? That’s a really interesting point that, you know, you’ve mentioned Australia’s history with fortified wine styles which many people don’t remember today. But actually that was the dominant style, wasn’t it? And also the lack of electricity in these rural areas. How did the arrival of electricity change things in that sense?

Bruce Tyrrell: Firstly you could work at night and yeah, things like electric pumps as against a hand pump. But the big one was refrigeration. Being able to keep the particularly white juice cool during ferment, keep it under control and make a whole lot better wine

Peter: And the Hunter isn’t the easiest place to grow vines, you know. Can you describe the climate a bit and how wine growing works there?

Bruce Tyrrell: yeah it’s, it’s often described as difficult. Once you understand it. It’s actually not that difficult. A major problem is summer rain. But you know, ask the Europeans about that this year, they’re having their fair share of it.

Peter: Now. Hunter Semillon is a world famous wine style, you know. And something you’ve described as the work of my life, you know. Tell us about the grape, the wine And your involvement with it.

Bruce Tyrrell: I always say that about 60% of my bloodstream’s Semolon. Back in the eighties I suppose it was the penny dropped that in Semolon we had something that in the world of wine was truly unique. So we could make it with plenty of flavour. A Wonderful acid and ph, but do it at ten to eleven and a half alcohol so it naturally gets its flavours early. So you know we’re not, they’re not battery acid sauvignon blanc type wines. And they don’t taste like the cat slept on the glass last night. I’ll get a few of my kiwi mates. So, yeah, the flavour comes early. One of the great show judges and one of the greatgest agricultural teachers. I’ll, of course, call Graham. Gregory’s a great mate of my dad’s. And they were here in the cellar one afternoon and, dad was showing Gregory the young semalons out of the vat and I remember he said, murray, there’s enough bloody acid in that to take the enamel off your teeth. And I’ve never forgotten it. And he was right. No wonder. Having trouble selling this. People actually are not enjoying drinking it. So let’s leave it out a bit longer. Let’s. For the ones that we want to sell as younger wines, we’ll leave them just a tiny gramme. Gramme and a half of residual sugar. Just a tiny bit. And refrigeration allowed us to do that. And so the wines became much more attractive as young wines, but still had the acid and the ph to live for 30, 40 years. So, we’re able to get the best of both worlds, really. And since then, you know, Semolina has moved on and moved up. and so we’ve gone from there and then at the better end, putting the wines away, giving them five years, eight before we put them on the market and that. Then suddenly people were going, where did this come from? Where is this wine been? And we still get a lot of that. wine really isn’t made anywhere else in the world. It’s quite unique. So we’ve been very lucky to. You know, I always say that I’m the luckiest man in the wine industry because I got to work with that. From undrinkable to great wine

Peter: And how do you see the place of Hunter Semillon in today’s wine market? It can’t be easy. Equally, making a wine that relies to some extent on bottle age for its unique character and complexity. In an era of instant gratification, the.

Bruce Tyrrell: Hunter Valley is pretty small, so there’s not vast amounts of Hunter semal on mine. And so we move into that category above eight quid on the high straight. Yeah, we really are a top end restaurant collectors, really. And the reds are a bit the same.

Peter: How would you. How would you sum up Hunter Semillon for those, maybe who don’t know it in just a couple of words,

00:15:00

Peter: probably.

Bruce Tyrrell: Flavour and elegance. Two words I’d use. Yeah, there’s, It really is it’s fine and elegant. It’s the best thing you can eat, you know, with fresh oysters and prawns. And it’s a great seafood wine because a lot of seafood doesn’t have much, a lot of flavour. You know, you have a big fat yard mate with a plate of oysters. You can’t taste the oysters, you got no chance. But we’ll see them all and you can and it matches. And, you know, today we don’t physically work as hard as we used to, so we need to drink and eat things that are finer and elegant. So, you end up with a beer belly from here to the Christmas.

Peter: Now, of course, there’s, there’s more to Hunter than Samion, as you just alluded to as well. What are the other key varieties in the Hunter and what makes them distinctive whitewise?

Bruce Tyrrell: Verdelho works really well. Probably never going to be the wine you put your cellar for 30 years, but, great drinking. And then, of course, Chardonnay. This, is where Chardonnay of modern times in Australia started. My father got a great love of white burgundy, and so we went looking for cuttings and there was some here on a vineyard called HVD. Hunter Valley distillery is what it stood for, which was owned by penfolds. And we asked them for cuttings over a few years and they said no. And so we snuck in one night and took the prunings off the ground and came back and got started. We’re not good at no, never, have been. So that’s really a Chardonnay started. And I think a great thing with Chardonnay here is that the acids are strong enough and fine enough, so you keep that wonderful liveliness and freshness in the Chardonnay. We do a lot of single vineyard wines because we’ve got really good old vineyards that are very distinctive.

Peter: And what about the Reds?

Bruce Tyrrell: The reds are, it’s pretty much Syrah and chara. we’ve got some very old clones of charar in the district. Our oldest bit of vineyard here, which was planted in 1879. Again, we’re told that those cuttings came from the hill of Hermitage. There is one of the historians who says it comes from La Chapelle. Now, I don’t know, but it’s a bloody good story and there’s no way we’ll ever find out because those vines don’t exist at La Chapelle anymore. There’s all been replanted on iris resistant rootstock. So it is funny, actually, to be able to tell the Europeans that they’ve only got young vineyards. We’ve got the real McCoy, which, thankfully, we have.

Peter: Tell us a bit about those old vines in these special sites that you have. What makes the wine from them special? Are they still, some of them still planted on their own roots?

Bruce Tyrrell: They’re all on their own roots. I’ve got five acres of Semillon one patch of vineyard that’s planted on Ramsay rootstock. It’s known as the steroids block because it grows like bloody triffids. And. And, you know, we get about seven tonne to the acre off it and it doesn’t have a lot of flavour or character. So, no, no, all, on their own roots.

Peter: And what do you think that vines on their own roots, what do you think that gives to the. To the wines?

Bruce Tyrrell: Ah, look, there is more intensity of flavour. I don’t think there’s any question.

Peter: You stopped using cork in 2003, I understand. Why did you do that?

Bruce Tyrrell: Because we lost all faith in the cork industry as a quality supplier. All faith. we had problems and problems. We had two vintages of that, one that had to be taken off the market. that was expensive. And we knew that the screw cap and we’d done enough trials, you know, screw caps we used here back in the sixties. So we knew that the wines were fine under screw cap, and we just went, that’s it. We’ve had enough. We did a tasting in 1983. We bottled ten dozen vat, one with screw cap, same dose. We bottle that one and the cork, and we put ten dozen of each side by side in the warehouse. So, identical storage conditions. We didn’t touch them for ten years. And then we opened six dozen of each. Would have opened a couple of bottles. It would have been, When you open 70 odd bottles and you go through them, the wines under screw cap were perfect. They all had wonderful bottle aged characters. They were all fresh and they were all consistent. The ones over under cork were up and down like a mad woman’s breakfast. They were everywhere and there was no consistency. Probably 8% were undrinkable. There was another 20 odd percent that weren’t as good as they should have been. So there was nothing under cork better than all of the ones under screw cap. So it was pretty easy. I remember a very serious french winemaker saying, you’re on the other side of the world, you get what we reject. And he said,

00:20:00

Bruce Tyrrell: if it wasn’t for the buddy restaurateurs and the press, I’d be using screw cap on all of mine. That was chief winemaker out of a first growth. Things have been in countries like China. 90% of the population in China doesn’t own a corkscrew. So how the hell are they going to open a bottle of Wine?

Peter: What about today in the Hunter? What’s exciting you in the Hunter Valley

Bruce Tyrrell: Today, I think, for me, is the next generation in that I see the future. That’s the future of the Hunter Valley So we’ve got those people there at that age. They’re halfway through their careers now. It’s a bit hard to jump ship, so they’ve got to stay and make it work. I think that makes me happy. This is areas of my life. Hunter Valley is really where my heart is. There’s no question there.

Peter: And what about the wines? What’s. What’s exciting you in the wines of today?

Bruce Tyrrell: I think probably the improvement in Shiraz, being able to handle fruit in tougher vintages. Bit of that skier bit of that’s knowledge, though. And these young blokes have, you know, they’ve all worked in other places. They’ve worked in Europe where, you know, wet vintages are, nothing, you know, irregular. They have plenty of them. So the handling of that, the gear that they’re using, that sort of stuff, is made a big difference.

Peter: Bruce Tyrrell, thank you very much indeed.

Bruce Tyrrell: No problems. Thank you.

Susie: I just love that line, you know, there’s enough bloody acid in there to take the enamel off your teeth, you.

Peter: Know, I think it was just as good like a Yorkshire accent as it does australian accent. You’re right. The sentiments there.

Susie: I mean, you can so totally see that back in the day, too. You know, early harvest, high acid, fairly rudimentary winemaking. But then they obviously realised they could soften it and make it more approachable at the same time as keeping that distinctive style, you know?

Peter: Yeah, and Bruce said refrigeration helps in that. You know, you forget these things. But there was a time not too long ago when a lot of winemaking was very rudimentary, as you say, you know, no electricity, dirt tracks, that kind of thing. We forget Australia used to be mostly about fortified wines, but then, you know, with electricity and refrigeration and modern techniques, they could suddenly make fresh, clean table wine

Susie: And that’s partly what led to the boom in australian wine from the 1980s onwards, you know, of which Hunter was, of course, a part. And I also love that story about pinching Chardonnay prunings from the Pentfolds vineyard. I mean, it’s so funny, you know, when he says we’re not good at no.

Peter: Yeah, he’s got a great turn of phrase, hasn’t he? I hope there’s no retrospect statute of limitations on these things.

Susie: Maybe, isn’t there?

Peter: But, you know, when we were tasting with him a short while back, I remember him referring to Cork taint in Semillon being a big problem because he said it stands out like a sore thumb or as he put it, like a dunny on a ridge.

Susie: Brilliant. Yeah. And I think the perfect note to move on. Coming up, we hear from Xanthe Hatcher of Audrey Wilkinson Wines and recommends some pretty cool Hunter bottles too. By way of brief recap, the Hunter Valley occupies a unique niche within australian wine a relatively small historic region near Sydney with a hot, sticky climate, but one which produces highly distinctive, characterful wines, none more famous than its iconic hunter, Semillon.

Peter: Next up, we are talking with Xanthe Hatcher, who’s chief winemaker for Agnew Wines, which includes the historic Audrey Wilkinson estate. And I began by asking her, how she manages the unique climate of the Hunter.

Xanthe Hatcher: The Hunter valley is one of the strangest climates to grow grapes in Australia. I believe. we’re one of the warmest regions, but we do have some, maritime influences as well. So that, essentially creates this circumstance where you have quite warm conditions, but then, the sea breezes kind of moderates the temperature as well. But along with that, our climate, we also get, a lot of our rainfall in summer and autumn, which is essentially when we’re picking all of our fruit, which again poses further challenges, in achieving ripeness, in achieving, clean fruit. Yeah, it’s honestly, every vintage has a different and unique challenge. and you never know what the vintage is going to throw at you, but you’re always a surprise.

Peter: It sounds like it’s spoken from bitter personal experience. Give me an example. Maybe a difficult recent vintage and what you’ve done to overcome that.

Xanthe Hatcher: I would say the past, probably three vintages have been quite cool and wet in the Hunter Valley so a lot of, above average rainfall,

00:25:00

Xanthe Hatcher: kind of cooler, ripening conditions. And so I guess you need really, meticulous vineyard management, number one. and you need a bit of good luck as well, number two. So, if you can, you know, create a circumstance where your vine’s in balance so, you know, you’re going to, you know, hopefully ripen your fruit. M if you have really good canopy management, so you have good airflow, m so you can keep pest and diseases out of the, out of the fruit. and then you hope for a little bit of sunshine and a little bit of warm weather, so that it ripens, the berries and so that you get a crop. Yeah, you do what you can and you hope for the best.

Peter: Judging when to pick must be, must be a difficult call though.

Xanthe Hatcher: Very. Yes. it’s a careful balance between, is the fruit ripe? Number one, can we pick it? Number two, do we have labour to pick it? Number three, is there another, weather event coming? Is there more rain coming? So are we pushed to pick it or, you know, do we have a nice period where we can get out there and grab it? I’m probably painting a very dim view of the Hunter. We do have some amazing vintages where it’s lovely and warm and dry and we have the luxury of clean fruit and picking fruit when we want to pick. But, I find that the hunters are, a, region of extremes. There’s, there’s a lot of, extreme climactic events.

Peter: Sounds fun. now, Hunter Semillon is a classic style in the wine world, but it could be described as relatively niche. how do you see the variety and the style today at its place in the market today?

Xanthe Hatcher: I would agree it is completely a niche variety. As a Hunter winemaker, it is the variety that we’re most proud of, and it is the variety that we know that we are most famous for around the world. But yet as a market share, it’s really quite small for what we make. And I find that when I go out and I talk to people at dinners or, tastings, they all like Hunter Valley Semion and they were all really impressed with Hunter Valley Semillon, especially when they try some of the older examples, but they actually don’t drink it very much day to day. So I think there’s a big appreciation of it, but we just don’t have a huge market share. Absolutely. And it’s just about getting more and more people to try it and showing them the beauty of it and the flexibility of it. Like a young Hunter Valley Semillon is so vastly different to an aged version that there’s just so many circumstances where you can enjoy it.

Peter: And what would you say to persuade people to drink it a bit more? You know, both the younger versions and the more mature versions.

Xanthe Hatcher: Just showing them the beauty of it. Like a young, pristine Semillon on a summer’s day with some fresh seafood. There’s nothing better.

Peter: Sounds delicious. I’m ready to crack open a bottle right now and it’s early in the morning. now, Hunter Chardonnay and Shiraz are similarly well known styles. How have they evolved over time and what makes them distinctive and special today?

Xanthe Hatcher: I think Hunter Hm Valley Chardonnay has gone through a bit of an evolution, and especially of late, they’ve really gained in recognition as one of, the regions in Australia producing great chardonnays a lot of the time. Recently, it’s probably been the more cool climate regions that have been, getting all the popularity and then being noticed, in, wine shows and things like that. And Hunter Valley Chardonnay is really kind of putting its hand up a lot more lately. I think it’s because we’re doing a lot with it and we’ve kind of found a. Found our groove, in a sense. We’ve got amazing fruit number one and it’s. The fruit profile can range from lovely citrus into green apple, a little bit of. Into the stone fruit spectrum, but it, has lovely intensity, and I think a lot of the Hunter winemakers are making them in a really complex and textural fashion whilst retaining that beautiful fruit. So they’re beautifully balanced and they’re really approachable and rewarding styles of chardonnay, definitely. I would say Hunter valley Shiraz has been more about sticking to our, guns and promoting what the beauty of Hunter Valley Shiraz. it is known for being a medium weight style, for being a more savoury spice, driven style. And I think that style has

00:30:00

Xanthe Hatcher: kind of come into, be a bit more, bit more popularity, recently. a lot of wine drinkers around the world are kind of more going, tending towards the more medium weight style. So we’ve found, ourselves in a position where we’ve got what people want.

Peter: Which is nice, and you experiment with alternative varieties as well. Tell us a bit about those, you know, what’s looking promising and exciting in terms of new wines, you know, for the future from the Hunter, definitely, yeah.

Xanthe Hatcher: I mean, we love our, you know, the varieties that have made the Hunter famous, but we’re also very conscious that we need to kind of continually evolve and continually adapt. And especially in the wake of climate change, we need to find varieties that, perhaps, you know, are suited to the Hunter valley as well. So we had some of the first plantings of tempranillo in the country, and we now have some pretty, you know, hefty plantings of tempranillo. Just, we’ve found it to be really well suited to the Hunter Valley climate being quite warm and it’s kind of, early ripening in the Hunter Valley And we quite like the style of red that it’s producing, again, that kind of medium weight, fruit driven and savoury as well. But we’ve also been experimenting with other varieties. last year we planted Fiano, again, another m mediterranean variety that has been doing well in the Hunter Valley we’re thinking about vermentino. We do have, a very, very small planting of Gewertz, tremolo and Melbik as well. So, we’re always keen to play.

Peter: Around now, you know, you, make wines in lots of places. you know, how do you see going, zooming out of it to see the bigger picture?

Peter: You know, the Hunter is pretty small. Fry in Australia in terms of australian wine production overall. You know, how do you see its place and how do you see it evolving from here?

Xanthe Hatcher: I think that our strongest suit is that we’ve got some of the richest history in the australian wine industry. One of the first regions to be established, and some of the oldest vines. I’m making wine currently from, two sites where the vines are over 120 years old. And that’s not common in the wine industry anymore, unfortunately.

Peter: And what about the future then, too? You’ve mentioned tempranillo coming in and doing well. How do you see the evolution? You’ve got these classic stars, you’ve got these wonderful old vines. But what about the future? You know, what’s going to be exciting for the, you know, in a hundred years time? What are we going to be drinking and getting excited about from the Hunter?

Xanthe Hatcher: Gosh. Well, I honestly don’t think we will ever steer away from our classics, our semillon, our chardonnay and our Shiraz. And I don’t think we want to, And I think there’s a very strong focus in the Hunter valley of looking after those old sacred sites and making sure that they survive for a long time, looking after the soil and looking after the vine. So I don’t think that will change, but I think the fact that we’re experimenting where we’re playing around with not just different varieties, but different winemaking techniques, and we’re kind of stay true to what we do well, but play around and hopefully, find maybe another variety that comes up as number four on our top varieties.

Peter: So making sure you’re having some fun at the same time. I, like the sound of that. Xanthe thank you very much indeed.

Xanthe Hatcher: You’re very welcome.

Susie: So that’s intriguing, you know, what do we think out of Tempranillo, Fiano, Vermentino and Malbec is going to be the next classic Hunter variety?

Peter: Who knows? Who knows? I do also like the sound of things like Albarino, Barbara and Gruner Fetlina too, you know. I mean, we’ve got something a bit different coming up on the tasting, haven’t we? So maybe that’s. We can talk about that in a second. But, you know, meantime, you know, as Xanthe says, we wine lovers often wax lyrical about Hunter Semillon, but don’t actually drink it, you know, and she’s right, you know, we need to find excuses to crack open and enjoy the freshness and complexity and uniqueness of these ones.

Susie: On which note, let’s get stuck into our recommendations. So let’s kick off with the semillons. Let’s do that. now, something we’d say right from the start, a bit of advice here. You can buy young Hunter Semillon and age it yourself, but we tend to find you can also buy good Hunter semions with a bit of age, some later releases, if you like, and they’re often not that much more expensive. And what you have is much more complexity and roundness and character, frankly, more bang for your buckley than in the younger versions. So we’d advise that as a starting point, going for those slightly older wines.

Peter: Yeah. And it’s also important to say that neither of these, the young semillons, or

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Peter: the slightly more mature ones are cheap wines. These are not cheap wines. You know, it’s important to say that these are not mass produced wines, they’re small production, they’re quality wines, you know, as Bruce says, these are. These are kind of restaurant wines, they’re fine wines, you know. Anyway, in this context of the direct semillons, with that little bit of age, we would definitely put the, one I’ve got here, the Mount Pleasant Elizabeth Semillon, 2017. So, what, seven years old already? This is about 28 quid, and it’s pretty complex. But also, you know, the thing I like about this one is it’s not kind of super intense, it’s just kind of seamless in its texture. It’s so polished, so refined, very, very long. I really, really liked it. And incidentally, the 2018, which is just about to come onto the market in the UK, is really good too. Possibly a notch better than this one as well.

Susie: So, yeah, and I’d give a shout out to two wines. Firstly, gundog the chase semi on 2015. So, nearly ten years old. it’s nutty and waxy with lemon zest and easy tones. It’s really lifted and incredibly elegant. And then, of course, the rather grown up, very famous Tyrrell’s vat one Hunter Valley Semillon 2017, which has classic lemon pith, mineral and toasty characters. It is amazing the intensity they managed to achieve with just 11.5% alcohol. You know, you’ve got some wood smoke, lime, lovely sort of textured succulents. It’s so classy and so age worthy.

Peter: Yeah, it’s still relatively young, isn’t it? You know, we tried, what was it, the 1998 that won something on, didn’t we, at, the.

Susie: Oh, that was good.

Peter: Institute of Master wine conference recently with Bruce, and that was pretty special. I reckon 25 years is a good drinking point for quality Hunter Semillon. That’d be fair.

Susie: Yeah, absolutely. Could be more. Could be more with the best, best.

Peter: wine if you have the patience. but I guess that’s an interesting point, isn’t it? Like the question I put to Bruce, does that make Hunter semi unfashionable, given it needs significant time to really come into its own? And they’re quite high acid too, and somewhat niche in style. You know, maybe it’s not. It’s not as obvious, is it as Sauvignon blanc or as easy going as something like Pinot Grigio? Or are they actually fashionable wines because they have the low alcohol and also a kind of fine and food friendly?

Susie: Well, I’d say unquestionably that these are bang on trend, you know, as are some of the other.

Peter: Just to be clear, I have no.

Susie: Idea what my clothes bang on you.

Peter: On the other, you know, what’s in. So I’m gonna go with you on this one. You reckon they’re bang on trend?

Susie: I do, I do. I really think they are. As are some of the others that we’re gonna come on to. but, you know, savoury, complex, unique styles and all at such low alcohols, these are authentic wines with a bit of a story, you know, that’s bang on trend. Ah, they’re not cheap, but they’re fine and distinctive. And I think this makes them really appealing for the modern wine drinker. You know, fine wines for the future, even for millennials and Gen. Z o N G. Wow.

Peter: Okay, that’s. That’s quite something. Hopefully they’re as patient as we are. As we are. Because, you know, I think all of the wines we mentioned would benefit from more age. And they actually, to be honest. Anyway. Yeah, yeah, let’s move beyond semi. If we can drag ourselves away from semi, let’s move slightly beyond this with the Audrey Wilkinson winemaker Seleccion. Chardonnay 2022. This is 16, 99 at Waitrose. And it’s really lovely.

Susie: It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?

Peter: It manages to be both characterful and elegant. You know, it’s a rare trick for Chardonnay, this. It’s got sort of appley, peachy, sort of flinty, yeasty hints. It’s succulent and creamy textured, but it’s also fresh and savoury. It’s really satisfying and I think lots of wine for the price, you know, again, not cheap, but there’s a lot here and it punches really well at its price. And again, lowish alcohol. Twelve and a half percent.

Susie: Yeah, yeah, I could drink a lot of that, just as I could drink a lot of another Hunter Chardonnay. and that is the. The one we’ve got here, the Vinden head case Somerset Vineyard Chardonnay 2022, which is a bit more funky and toasty and flinty, with a bit of strut match, a bit of roasted nut and curry leaf complexity, and a really expressive and savoury style with a touch of spice. You know, it tastes, dare I say it, expensive. It just does. It’s a food wine as well. You know, I would say just a simple roast chicken stuffed with fresh lemons and thyme would be absolutely delicious. But if you want to go a bit more fancy, shellfish, you know, maybe a crab tart, or even one of my favourites, lobster Mac and cheese.

Peter: Any excuse to wheel out the lobster Mac and cheese. You’re just there. That’s brilliant. Fantastic. yeah. So really, really smart wine that one. we talked about different varieties, didn’t we, earlier? but how about this one?

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Peter: The Briar Ridge fiano. So, limited release Hunter Valley Fiano 2022. This is seriously impressive, isn’t it?

Susie: Absolutely.

Peter: You know, we’re both big fans of Fiano, and this is a top, one.

Susie: Of the best I’ve tasted.

Peter: Lovely aromas, of, you know, fresh hazelnut, ripe peach. The palate is rich and complex, but also savoury and spicy. It’s got a bit of sinew to it as well.

Susie: Yeah, I mean, it’s quite a generous Italian. Yes, yes. Yeah. and it’s quite a generous style, I was going to say. But again, only just over 12% alcohol, you know, very complex and herbal. I think if you had this blind, you’d put it as a top producer in southern Italy. It is superb.

Peter: You might. I probably put it somewhere completely inappropriate and from a completely different variety. No, but. No, you’re absolutely right. It is very, typical and a beautiful version.

Susie: I completely agree.

Peter: Anyway, to finish things off, we have a red wine

Susie: We do, we do.

Peter: Broken wooden Hunter Valley Shiraz 2021. which I like because it’s elegant and it’s midway with really attractive characters of bright red cherry and peppery floral wild mint notes, too. It’s quite savoury, isn’t it? And again, food friendly as a style different to a lot of other australian shiraz. And all the better for it.

Susie: And talking of food, I think in terms of food, I think it would be fantastic. It with just some really good quality sausages, a dollop of creamy mash, some buttery winter greens, you know, just gorgeous. Or if you want something more hearty, which you could with a wine that’s a bit more medium weight, you know, because they’re not going to fight in terms of power, you know, maybe sausages done in more of a Casselle style. Yeah.

Peter: you know, well, we had it last night with our chicken prawn and chorizo stew. It was very good sausage y chorizo.

Susie: So I think we can reasonably conclude that Hunter does indeed make distinctive wines, whether they’re Semigon or Chardonnay, Shiraz or even fiano. It may only produce a tiny fraction of Australia’s wine and in a pretty challenging climate, but the Hunter Valley is a place that marks its wines in a unique way. And while it has a rich history and legacy, there are exciting signs of experimentation and innovation that also bode well for the future.

Peter: Yeah. Now we’ll put all the wine details on our show notes, as well as more general information on our website, susieandpeter.com, including a helpful map. do you love a good map?

Susie: You like a good map? You do indeed. That’s made your day happy.

Peter: Meantime, thank you to Bruce Tyrrell, thank you to Xanthe Hatcher. Also, to the Hunter Valley wine and Tourism association and wine Australia for sponsoring this show. Finally, thanks to you for joining us. Until next time, cheers.

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